Some vehicles today are capable of driving autonomously, i.e. without steering—accelerating—or braking input from a driver. Sensors of the autonomous vehicle continuously monitor the vehicle surrounding. The sensors can detect e.g. road lanes, surrounding traffic and various obstacles on—or in the vicinity of the road. The sensors may detect distance and direction to other vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles etc. Different kinds of sensors may be used, such as cameras, radar and/or lidar. Autonomous vehicles may also comprise communication equipment, such that road and/or traffic information may be sent to the vehicle. A drive arrangement of the vehicle may control drive functions, such as steering, accelerating, braking etc. as a function of the information received from the sensors. Hereby the vehicle can drive autonomously at least along some road sections within a road network.
Some requirements must be met before autonomous driving is possible to initiate. For example, autonomous driving may be enabled only when the sensors provide the drive arrangement with sufficient information on the host vehicle surrounding. Different geographical limitations on where autonomous driving is possible may apply. Further, due to various limitations of sensors of the drive arrangement and/or host vehicle functions, autonomous driving may be activated only in certain velocity intervals. For example, autonomous driving of a host vehicle may be possible only between an autonomous drive minimum velocity and an autonomous drive maximum velocity.
Autonomous drive functions may facilitate for a driver, since he/she may focus on secondary tasks instead of driving when autonomous driving is enabled. However, due to limitations of the autonomous drive arrangement or limitations of autonomous host vehicle functions, the driver may select to drive manually instead of using autonomous drive functions which do not provide autonomous driving in line with the driver's preferences.
Thus, improvements related to autonomous driving and enablement of autonomous drive functions are desirable.